A definitive opportunity for POW/MIA Family Members to share their experiences as they try to get answers regarding the fate of their missing relatives.

Do you have a story to share with the POW Warrior?

Feel free to e-mail your stories, letters, pictures and thoughts to PowWarrior@gmail.com. Your information will be reviewed and we will coordinate with you on how you would like your story presented on the site. The DoD has done all they could to keep your stories from the public, well, not anymore.

Quotes from the POW/MIA Issue

"It appears that the entire issue is being manipulated by unscrupulous people in the Government, or associated with the Government. Some are using the issue for personal or political advantage and others use it as a forum to perform and feel important, or worse. The sad fact, however, is that this issue is being controlled and a cover-up may be in progress. The entire charade does not appear to be an honest effort, and may never have been."
Resignation Letter of
Col. Millard A. Peck,
Chief of the Special Office for POW-MIA
12 February, 1991

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We were all chatting last night and discussing the complete fiasco that has become this so-called “reorganization.” Clearly all of the promises made in the early stages of the reorganization, particularly under Michael Lumpkin, DASD for SO/LIC (Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflicts) were strategic in nature. Or, at least that is how it has played out. We would like to think that Lumpkin, a former Navy Seal, took his role in the reorganization to heart. Based on what we experienced both individually and collectively, we think he did. It was those that followed Lumpkin in January of this year who refused to “keep the promise.”

These were some of the more poignant quotes from Mr. Lumpkin’s June 12, 2014 comments during the Annual Briefings for Vietnam Families in Washington, DC with regard to the reorganization. (Taken from the website for the National League of POW/MIA Families.)

“Our Service members’ lives are valued and their families our focus.”

“We are working to change the culture and processes that guide our workforce.”

“… a balanced and more family-centric approach, improved access to information will be the bedrock of the process and cultural for this new agency.”

“I look forward to developing a new way of working that is realistic, dynamic and responsive.”

“We’d like the voice of our missing personnel families to shape and inform our process for the future.”

“I want to ensure every stakeholder is aware of our intent, and an active participant in this change-process and feels empowered to provide feedback.”

“ … the goal of all of the officials you’ll hear from today is to bring an end to talk about the government being unresponsive.”

A few weeks later, before the House Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee, Mr. Lumpkin shared similar sentiments to Congress. (Taken from the Military Personnel Subcommittee’s website.)

“Their families are our focus, and better service to those families is our goal.”

“The decisions are based on dispassionate analytical assessments and informed by feedback from families and Congress.”

“The Director of the new Defense Agency, in coordination with the SCOs, will develop guidance that details roles and responsibilities to ensure, responsive, timely and transparent communication with the families.”

“All external communication with families, VSOs, concerned citizens and the public will be robust and two-way.”

Now the question is, how much of these promises made specifically to families have been part of this reorganization?

Since Admiral Franken, LTG (ret) Linnington, DASD René Bardorf and former JPAC leader Commander McKeague took charge of the reorganization in January of 2015, families were categorically put at arm’s length and “robust and two-way” communication as well as being “an active participant in this change-process” were thrown out the window. The promise of feeling, “empowered to provide feedback” is now sadly, laughable.

Weekly conference calls became one-way with DoD personnel telling stakeholders what they had done, were doing and their travel plans. One the first call, when leaders of family groups attempted to question rationale for decisions made without their input and attempted to provide feedback, they were quickly removed from the calls, told they could no longer participate until their attitude changed. The remaining stakeholders still on the calls learned quickly from this initial call that these weekly events were nothing more than an exercise, allowing the DoD to report back to Congress that they were working closely with stakeholders.

This became an underlying theme in everything that the DoD has done in the past eight months; showing more concern for appearances than substance.

To quote the ever-poignant 1991 resignation letter of former Chief of the Special Office for POW/MIAs Col. Millard A. Peck:

The Special Operation Forces Situation Report website, SOFREP, recently wrote an interesting article on the reorganization of the POW/MIA accounting community into the newly formed DPAA (Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Accounting Agency). While the article is available via subscription, someone was kind enough to send us the article in its entirety via email which you can find here in a PDF format.

We have several comments about this article that are worth stating here publicly. First, we are yawning over the “good vibes” that everyone wants to force-feed us about the “new energy and a renewed commitment” of the POW/MIA accounting community. We’re sorry but how many times when we get a new director have we heard this? As the article states, in the past 12 years we have had seven or eight directors. This is no different than when your family expects you to get all excited over your cousin’s upcoming wedding – when it is her fourth one.

And Mr. Linnington thinks he is going to be around for 10 years? The only hopes he has for staying that long is if Ann Mills Griffiths leaves this earth within the next three. History has taught us that with every new director Ann gushes over him …until she disagrees with him. Does the name Jerry Jennings ring a bell? This is why people have always been critical of the DoD’s 40 years of fatal attraction with Ann Mills Griffiths. She is the only one they work with and listen to and don’t think for a moment that family input is being sought on these wonderful conference calls with the DoD. They are nothing more than window dressing so they can report back to Congress that there was family involvement.

As has been made clear by many of the other family groups, these calls are nothing more than press release journalism. They are telling family groups what they have done and what they are doing, they are NOT keeping their promises made in the initial stages of 2014. During the July 2014 congressional hearing with the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee Michael Lumkpkin, who was then the DoD’s lead person on the reorganization said, “We’d like the voice of our missing personnel families to shape and inform our process for the future.”

We are still waiting for this promise, as well as the others, to be kept.

The SOFREP article gives five focal points of the reorganization and the challenges of the new DPAA director, Michael Linnington.

1) Morale of the Workforce – While we as family members have been jerked around for the past 14 months, so has the workforce in both Hawaii and DC. Often on a daily basis they have been told one thing and by the end of the week, things change yet again. During the Annual Meetings many family members were told that little actual work has been done in the past 12 months because they were being pulled away for meeting after meeting about the reorganization. DPAA is still unclear and indecisive on far too many aspects of the reorganization. We at the POW Warrior are somewhat skeptical about the January 1, 2016 “fully operational” stand-up date.

2) Change WWII Priority – Clearly in direct correlation to the congressional mandate of 200 IDs annually, DPAA is putting all of their eggs in the WWII basket. The point that needs to be made here is that DPAA immediate knew that WWII was going to be their treasure trove. One has to ask that if they knew there were so many WWII remains ripe for the picking, WHY were these never cultivated or exhumed before the congressional mandate and reorganization?

3) Improve Communications – This comment takes a huge step back from all of the propaganda that Michael Lumpkin was sharing in the Spring of 2014 when the reorganization was first announced. Families have become an after thought. Their concerns of communication within DoD is the concern here, not the families. So, the initial promise of improving how the new DPAA treats families has also been tossed. One could wager that mountain was just too hard of a climb for a workforce who has had carte blanche to treat families as doormats for almost half a century.

4) Improve Vietnam Links– This is really nothing more than a red herring. We have no leverage with Vietnam anymore, thanks to John Kerry and John McCain who worked overtime during their tenure with the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs to bury the POW/MIA issue. It is no coincidence that the following year both Kerry and McCain were present at the White House when then President Clinton announced the reestablishment of relations with Vietnam. We have given Vietnam everything but the kitchen sink. All of the talks and trips that some groups have taken to Vietnam are nothing more than public relation stunts for their membership and to get a little press.

5) Probe by war, not region – We have to ask how this change in focus is going to help with the numbers game. Separating a given case from the conflict that it came from just seems absurd. While Vietnam would be a region in and of itself BUT, seriously DPAA, you are making us agree with Ann on this? This idea needs to be rethought and we are confident that the folks at Research and Analysis will happily tell you that evaluating a case devoid of conflict and the political powder keg that is correlated to each conflict, Vietnam in particular, is risky business.

Sadly, DPAA is well behind where it should be in the reorganization process. Many of the initial promises have fallen to the wayside or simply been ignored. The DoD has floundered through this reorganization by passing the baton to three sets of people to oversee the reorganization. What we will be left with will be a vague resemblance of what was promised yet the DoD will tout this as a victory because they control the message.

We have been having some lively discussion here at the POW Warrior about the recent announcement of Senate Bill 885 introduced in March of this year by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The bill itself is very brief, summarized here:

“National POW/MIA Remembrance Act of 2015

Directs the Architect of the Capitol to: (1) enter into an agreement to obtain a chair featuring the logo of the National League of POW/MIA Families, and (2) place it in the U.S. Capitol in a suitable permanent location within two years after enactment of this Act.”

While to many this may seem like a wonderful idea, we feel that this is nothing more than tokenism and subterfuge. Many factions of the POW/MIA community are pushing hard for this Act to be made into law and we have to ask the question, why? Has Senator Warren been a stallworth supporter of our cause for decades? Does she sit on any Senate committees that would be beneficial to us? Does she plan on becoming our voice in the Senate?

The answer to all of these questions is “no.” So, the next logical question is why would she sponsor such a bill if she has no history with our cause? The answer is simple, she was preparing to run for the highest office in the land, she wanted to be our first female president. This bill was a way for her to reach out to the masses and say, “I fought for a bill that would …”

We, collectively and individually, have been used, time and time again by those in Washington to fuel their reelection campaigns and insert themselves into an issue they know very little about simply because it looks good to their voters. We are always a safe bet, who would dare (besides DPAA of course) mistreat, or disrespect a POW/MIA family member? How many of us have gone to our representatives in Congress to get help with dealing with the DoD only to get either the run around or a half-baked effort to help us? Publicly we are the golden calf, privately we are something they truly want to distance themselves from politically.

Look at Senators McCaskill and Ayotte. Two years ago, they raked the then heads of DPMO and JPAC over the coals. McCaskill was quoted as saying, “Get it freaking done!” and Ayotte, with her finger pointed across her name plate, told them, “Fix it, or we’ll fix it for you!” Many of us cheered from our couches when these words were uttered. Yet where were they as the reorganization turned into a mockery? A source told us that while McCaskill’s office was well aware of the mess that was taking place, an aide alluded to the fact that they knew it was going to hell but that they didn’t have the power to tell the DoD how to do their job. In other words, they didn’t want to get involved. Quite a 180-degree turn from the threats and finger-pointing when the cameras were rolling and the press were paying attention.

All of this, the sponsorship, the chair everything is nothing more than tokenism on the part of the very system that is supposed to be serving us. We at the POW Warrior are sick and tired of groups who are more than willing to erect a memorial, organize a ceremony or hand out proclamations. We want politicians and veterans’ groups to get their hands dirty, to really learn the issue from the inside out, know why it is insane, for example, to have General (Ret.) Michael Linnington as the new head of DPAA. His loyalties are not to the families or to the missing, they are specifically to himself and a one-way street to the DoD. He was strategically placed on the third reorganization team so that he could take this post. In fact, if you read the newsletter of one specific family group, you will see that he was recommended as part of the reorganization team by the only family group that the DoD has ever listened to.

We had to laugh at DASD Bardorf’s email today, announcing General Linnington at the new director of DPAA.

“As you know, he was also an advisor involved in all aspects of standing up the new agency.”

He has only been on board since January. While a significant amount of work was done by Michael Lumpkin and the PACT, work which was heading in the right direction, much of that was thrown to the wayside because, as usual, someone wasn’t getting her way.

We at the POW Warrior want to see substantive insertion into the issue on the part of Congress. We don’t need more memorials, wreaths or plaques, we need people who are going to act, people who are going to get involved long-term and help families get their loved ones home and correctly identified. We are so over veterans’ groups who only get involved to a certain point and are afraid to step over a line. They would never put their membership in a bad light with the DoD or Congress. If a veterans’ group had to choose between POW/MIAs and an issue that would help improve the lives of their card-carrying paid members, you know darn well that we will be left in the dust.

We need to get past the tokenism and the subterfuge and start to get real.

Yes, we know, it has been a while. Our inbox has been hit hard with links to news stories and information that had been flooding in regarding the reorganization of the POW/MIA accounting agencies. Things seemed to be moving in the right direction when Michael Lumpkin was the face of the reorganization, officially announced in March ’14. All POW/MIA family organizations from all of the conflicts seemed to be poised and optimistic.

Even after the sudden change of direction in August/September when Lumpkin was replaced by Policy ASD Christine Wormouth. The Personnel Accounting Consolidation Taskforce – PACT – seemed to pick up the ball and still headed in the right direction. Then mistakes started to happen. Followed by all of the backdoor negotiating and backstabbing that some people are famous for, actually infamous. On October 31st, according to news articles from both Stars and Stripes and more recently, the Honolulu Register, Secretary Hagel held a conference call asking for a break for his staff to make sure everything was headed in the right direction. The two-week break became a two month break and then. out of left field, we got a whole new group of people to temporarily head the reorganization.

From reports and emails, this new group has decided to make the families the enemy. They are reading group websites, checking non-profit statuses and playing Big Brother. Then, if they find anything to their disliking, they are trampling on the 1st Amendment and tell families that they can’t be part of the process until they behave?

Well, here is a thought … We may have only skimmed the GAO report and read the beginning of the DOD’s Inspector General’s report but, we’re pretty sure that the phrase “highly dysfunctional” was used to describe the DOD, NOT the families or any family group. We’re pretty sure that the questionable leadership outlined in these reports were within DPMO and JPAC, not the families. In fact, the reports tasked you with improving relationships with the families and re-establishing trust. You have done the complete opposite.

Why not start with the man or woman in the mirror, DOD? Why not worry about your own house before you go looking for problems in someone else’s? From what we have seen in the past, oh, 40 years – you have plenty there to keep you busy. Is this how you fix what is broken in your own house? Silencing your critics? Ignoring the past? Making families out to be the bad guys after decades of your own abuse? And to what end? To punish families further for wanting the truth about their missing loved one? For expecting the DOD to keep its word and then holding your feet to the fire when you don’t?

You aren’t the victims here.

Maybe that is really the problem here – you don’t know how to fix your own problems …. so it is just easier to point out flaws in your victims. Then blame your failure on us?

We are sure many of you have noticed that the article we had published late last night was taken down early this morning. The reason for it was simple, there is something hinky going on and because we are always very conscientious of the truth, we wanted to take a step back and try to make sense out of the chaos. We still haven’t quite figured it all out but we felt we at least owed you an explanation.

To review the details of some of our earlier posts, present League board member Susie Stephens- Harvey had deceived the people of her community as well as League members claiming to be the sister of Army Staff Sergeant Stephen Geist who went missing in September of 1967. In reality, Susie, who has been married at least three times, was first married to Stephen Geist’s brother Jeffery. According to vital statistic records, their divorce was finalized in 1999. At that point, Susie was no longer a legal family member to Stephen Geist. Yet, Susie continued on with the charade of claiming to be SSG Geist’s sister, including doing regular interviews with local reporters telling tales of when her ‘brother’ left for Vietnam and how she found out he had gone missing. (See details here)

In direct violation of League Bylaws, when Ann Mills-Griffiths, now Chairman of the Board of Directors of the League, was made aware of Susie’s actual status in the Geist case, she maintained that Susie could continue as a voting member and League Board member because, “The dissolution of their marriage did not result in Susie’s being disqualified as a voting League family member, nor has it since.” Well, regardless of Ann’s statement, Susie Geist-Ragan-Stephens-Harvey is illegally sitting on the Board of Directors of the National League of Families.

The next question pertains to how Susie’s illegal status as a family member per League Bylaws affects her present husband, Allen Harvey’s status with the League. Interestingly enough, once the POW Warrior blog made the POW/MIA Community aware of Susie’s illegal status, while Susie’s status as a voting member and Board member did not change. Her husband Allen’s membership was downgraded to Associate Member we have been told. Why wasn’t Susie’s? Why wasn’t she removed from the Board? Once again, AM-G is disregarding and circumventing League Bylaws to suit her own personal agenda.

In the fall of last year we put in a FOIA request for the military records for Allen Harvey to see if his story held up in light of Susie’s interesting past. What we found was a bit less murky but still unclear.

It would appear that in a city of some 136,000 people, there are not only two Allen Harvey’s but each of them is married to a woman named Susan and each of these ladies go by the nickname “Susie” and that nickname is spelt the same way as well. The coincidences do not end there. Both couples appear to be in the same general age group, lived in the same neighborhoods, and at some point even on the same street but not necessarily at the same time.

The age we had for Allen Harvey was far too young to have served in Vietnam so we decided to look into it. When we initially sent in our FOIA request, the only Allen Harvey that we could find with a wife by the name of Susan at the same address was an Allen D. Harvey. Additionally, they were the only Susan and Allen Harvey in Savannah who were listed as owning a home together in the Chatham County, Georgia Assessor’s Office database.

When we received the reply to the FOIA, it stated that there was not an Allen D. Harvey matching that address and other vital statistics that served in the Armed Forces. When those results came back we did some more digging and the odd possibility that there were two Allen and Susan Harveys living in Savannah, Georgia presented itself.

Looking back, an article from 2008 listed Allen’s middle initial as “B” so we concluded that B and D could easily enough be mixed up so we sent another request in for records. We will know more in four to six weeks.

Recently we contacted the Vietnam Veterans of America, which Allen belongs to, to get their reaction to what we had found and surprisingly one of their officers in Georgia informed us that Allen’s middle initial wasn’t B or D but E. Now if you access any of the people search engines that are online (we prefer zabasearch.com), you will find that the only Allen E. Harvey in Georgia is listed as not being in Savannah and with an age of 55 – too young to have served during Vietnam.

As Alice said in Alice in Wonderland, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

We would like to encourage readers to go to the various people search sites and see for themselves the wide array of Allen and Susan Harveys in Savannah, Georgia and Georgia in general. One thing that did come to light as we expanded our search was that the residence that Susie has listed with the League is still under the name “Susan Stephens,” the name she used prior to marrying Allen. This would explain why we only found one Allen and Susan Harvey in the real property records for their county – She never changed it over to her married name and Allen was never added to the deed.

It is our hope that Allen’s military records can be cleared up and we can confirm his military service. While we prefer to deal in facts alone, in this case we have a gut feeling about Susie’s husband Allen. As we shared in email correspondence with the VVA, it did occur to us at one point that Allen might have not been aware of his wife’s true lineage with regard to her connection to the Stephen Geist case. We personally found it hard to believe that a Marine would knowingly go along with Susie’s charade as the sister of a MIA.

It is quite possible that Allen had been kept in the dark as much as we were. If that is the case, Susie has left quite a wake in her path.